


Up, Up and Away

by brieflybe



Series: Run for the Hills Before They Burn [1]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, In a way, M/M, Minor Character Death, PTSD, Romance, Self-Loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflybe/pseuds/brieflybe
Summary: Simon wishes that he could explain the stuff he chose not to think about, and he wishes that Baz would stop running into burning buildings, and he wishes that he was somehow better at not thinking about things.Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Run for the Hills Before They Burn [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695757
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to change the format because the old one stressed me out and messed with my writing. Sorry about that! The next segment is halfway done and will be posted as another part of this verse.

_A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river_

_but then he’s still left_

_with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away_

_but then he’s still left with his hands._

_\- Richard Siken, Crush._

**He’ll Never be rid of the tail.** The wings, too, probably, but they’re less embarrassing, somehow. He can fly. They’re useful. They made sense at the time. Nothing makes sense about a human being with a tail. 

He’s not sure what the big deal is. Back at the beginning (like, of that part of Simon’s life), Simon had asked Agatha’s father if you can just remove them. Like, just cut them off. Off with his wings, off with his tail, of with his head. It felt like it would be fine, at the time. Like chucking off parts of his body is the right thing to do under the circumstances. Baz was appalled. Like, his face twisted, and he actually shuddered. He said: “Absolutely not, Snow,” as if it was his disfigured body on the line. He covered his mouth with his hand, as if Simon was threatening to pull off his fangs. 

It didn’t matter, in the end. Dr. Wellbelove had said no - that there is no way to know what Simon’s magic has done to his body, that you can’t just go around removing body parts you’re not interested in. That those are wings, not a tumor. 

“We should go to the country,” Penny tells him, on the airplane back home, where magic is cultured, organized, civilized (unless Simon is the one to work it). “Find someplace for you to fly around.” When Simon doesn’t answer, she goes on, “Stretch your wings, you know?” 

When Simon doesn’t answer, Buz does it for him. “He’s not a dog, Bunce.”

Penny frowns. “I know that.”

“So stop suggesting taking him to the park to blow off steam and play with other dogs.” He snaps. 

Simon frowns. “That’s not what she was saying.” Except that it was, sort of, what she was saying, because that’s how Penny treats her problems. Except that’s what Simon had meant to say, before Baz went ahead and done it for him. It sounds mean, when Buz’s the one to say it. It sounds petty. 

“Do you want us to take you, then?” 

Simon doesn’t answer. He turns to Baz, who raises one dark eyebrow at him. Baz used to have this smirk, Simon calls is the “You’re-just-like-me-smirk”, that shows up whenever Simon doesn’t live up to his own standards. Like, as an upstanding citizen. As a good person. It went away, during the past months - Simon wasn’t living up to any standards, and Baz had few reasons so smirk, or sneer, or snarl. It’s back now, though. In a way, it’s nice. 

It’s just that people don’t fly. Not independently. Not with their own body parts. Simon wishes that he could feel like a person. (Shepard had said that Simon looks like a mutant, but Shepard collects magical creatures like they’re going out of style, so his opinion doesn’t count). (plus, Simon guesses he already had. Went out of style, that is).

“Simon, are you going to answer me.” Penny prods (she doesn’t ask).

“I’ll fly at Watford,” he says, voice flat. Baz-like. Like he’s bored. Mostly, he can’t find it in himself to be anything else. Like, to use inflections. “School’s on fire anyway.”

“Simon!” Penny gasps, as if he’s above sacrilege. He gave up the cross necklace gifted to him by his ex-girlfriend father in favor vampire boyfriend. He’s obviously isn’t. 

It’s Agatha who laughs, from somewhere behind them. Simon doesn’t remember if she ever laughed at his jokes. She must have, right? (Has Baz ever laughed at his jokes? Has Simon told him any?). “What? He’s got a point.” 

“Don’t look so outraged,” Simon tells Baz. His voice is still flat. It’s the thought of Watford that does him in, really. It’s the feeling of horror, and the feeling of guilt. It’s the fear that by destroying something inside your mind, you’ve killed it for real. “You’re flammable. You’re coming with me.” 

“Like I’m Lois Lane? Bite me.” 

Simon shrugs. He’s not sure what’s waiting for them at Watford. He doesn’t want to think about it. He supposes that it would be poetic, in a way, to be shot out of the sky (though not with Baz in his arms). (Baz wouldn’t get it - how Simon was supposed to die a hero’s death, and ended up living into whatever it is he has become). (And he won’t die, probably. And he doesn’t want to. This is why he doesn’t think - it always comes out twisted, words are never what he means them to be, even inside his own head). 

“M’kay,” he says, instead of all that.

Baz is staring at him, mouth slightly agape. 

Shepard snickers, somewhere behind them. 

Simon shifts in his seat. Sometimes his wings hurt, when they’re gone. Like phantom pains. Like he’s not supposed to be spelled Normal. He used to have this feeling, that if they will ever be magicked away for good, it’ll never stop hurting. He used to have this theory, that he’s allergic to magick now. Because of overexposure (PTSD, his therapist had told him, is not an allergy. It doesn’t work the same way). 

“None of you even like my wings,” Simon says, quietly, a few minutes later. “You don’t have to pretend that it’s fine.” 

“It is fine,” Penny tells him. 

“It’s a waste of magick,” he counters. 

“You don’t have any magick to waste,” Baz snaps. 

“I mean your magic,” he says. “But you have to do it, don’t you? I can’t leave the house without it. Without you two I wouldn’t even be able to live with other people. I’ll have to find a forest somewhere, and hide, and live off of squirrels.”

There is silence. Simon has never said that before. He’s not sure why he had just now. Mostly, he had made this conversation into an argument, and he didn’t want to lose. 

“I will never let that happen to you, Simon.” Penny sounds upset. Simon thinks, briefly, that Agatha probably gets it. She’s the practical sort, and she wasn’t afraid to leave him. 

“I live off of squirrels,” Baz says, eventually. 

So now it’s Simon’s turn to snap. “And is that good for you? Would you recommend such a lifestyle?” 

Baz looks away from him, then. “Oh, I’m not about to recommend any of my choices, Snow.” 

Well, good. Now he gets it. 

Simon is testing them. He’s been testing them for months, he supposes. Their patience, their resources, their limits. Their feelings for him. But that’s different. Now he’s calling their bluff. He’s not being a dick, just now. He’s being entitled. 

He’s flying anywhere. Everywhere. Inside the house, exclusively - he doesn’t want to cause another crisis, Watford is still suffering the damages of the last one he’s caused, and the UK is still suffering the damages of the one before that. It’s an old apartment - narrow rooms with high ceiling, and Simon spends his days trying not to hit the windows with his tail. 

Baz notices, of course - there is no subtlety to be had in a twenty years old boy flying around with the wings of a dragon. Penny - it took her a few days. She’s been focused on Watford, and the reputation of her mother, and with Shepard’s demon arm tattoos, and she doesn’t always look at you, when she talks to you, or in the same room as you, and she doesn’t always see you, even if she does look. 

Baz isn’t like that. His mind and hair aren’t scattered. He’s hyper-focused, and he notices - well, most things. Simon is a clumsy human being. But more then that, Simon doesn’t move things out of his way - not with his hands. He doesn’t remove himself out of the way, ever. He accept the inevitable collision, assuming that something will have to cave, and that he will probably move forward. He’s a person with mindless bruises on his tighs - from chairs, and dressers, and the sofa. He gets burnt on the roof of his mouth. He cuts himself on knives and paper alike. 

He also doesn’t keep track. He will roll up his sleeves and be surprised to find his forearm painted purple. He’ll run his tongue over his mouth and won’t understand why it hurts. Baz does keep track. Baz will tell him, “You ran into the coatrack, like a bloody idiot,” or, “You couldn’t wait for your tea to get cold, like a child,” or, “You stumbled over the blasted suitcase, I told you to put it away days ago.” He catalogs everything that comes to contact with Simon’s skin. He’s never not watching Simon, while in the same room. 

He has to look upwards, now. 

“Gosh,” he said, the first time he stepped into the apartment to the sight of Simon absentmindedly reading a comic book near one of the wet spots on the ceiling. “Was the floor mean to you again, Snow? Cause that issue can be resolved.” 

Simon shrugs. He’s learned to shrug without falling from the air, and he’s very proud. He stretches his wings in a way that he knows to be imposing (in a way the damages furniture; in a way that feels good). He stretches his tail, so that it bumps into Baz’s head.

“Careful with that thing!” Baz snaps. 

Simon raises an eyebrow. Both eyebrows, really. He never managed to raise just the one. 

“Your hair got into your eyes,” Simon explains, eyes wide. 

“Your tail got into my eyes,” Baz counters, eyes narrowed. “Are you going to come down from there and help me make dinner or are you just going to float around the room like a pest?” 

He’s being petulant. Simon rarely helps with dinner. He rarely helps with anything, really. Simon straightens himself then, pulling his legs upward, crossing them while still floating a few feet above the ground. It occurs to him that he should be more tired than he is. That flying is physical labor, and there is nothing overly normal or healthy in the way he’s currently using his wings. But he feels fine. Maybe it’s the Dragon Wings thing. Maybe the magick he used to have created a pair of wings with stamina. Whatever the reason, Simon can do this all day. “Nah,” he tells Baz. “I’m just going to watch.” 

Baz huffs, before making his way into the kitchen. “Yesterday you ate meat from the Expires Today section at Tesco.” Baz tells him. Simon is not sure what his point is.

“Yesterday you ate a squirrel from some tree in Hampstead Heath,” he offers. 

“I buy blood at the local butcher.” Baz snarls. “And I’ve never eaten any squirrels, I drunk them.” 

Simon is smiling despite himself. He almost bumps his head into a lamp. 

“Would you just get down from there? Merlin, just when I think I understand why you do the things you do you become even weirder.” He goes to open the fridge’s door, but Simon slams it back with his tail.

“Will you stop being a public menace?” 

“We have nothing in there anyway,” Simon shrugs. “Just order something.”

“You order something,” Baz is cross with him. He’s enjoying that too, in a way. Baz annoyed; Baz aghast, and baffled, and dismayed. All better than Baz upset, Baz despairing, Baz walking gracefully on eggshell near Simon’s sofa. 

“Deliveroo won’t let me open an account.” He laments. “Don’t have a card.” 

Baz rolls his eyes mightily, before pulling his phone out. 

“Should I be a delivery man?” he asks. “I could probably be good at it, what with the wings.”

“You will probably also be good as a flying monkey at the West End production of Wicked, but that doesn’t make it a career prospect.” 

Simon snorts. “Merlin and Morgana, I would be good at that.” His tail flicks to the side, dropping the phone out of Baz’s hand. 

“Okay, what in the name of Crowly _is wrong with you_?” 

Simon shrugs. 

It ends up being a nice enough night. Baz settles on the couch to wait for their take out and watch some television, and Simon settles next to him, a safe distance away, making random attempts to startle Baz with his tail. By the end of the evening, Baz is just about ready to throttle him. 

It’s the nicest night they’ve had in a while, really. Simon decides not to look too hard into that. 

It becomes… sort of thing, Simon flying around the apartment like a menace. Like Peter Pan’s lost shadow. He’s not interested in the ground, and he’s not interested in being a grown-up, and he can’t leave. He’s sort of forgotten why he’s started doing that, to begin with. Yesterday he’s heard Baz telling Penny, “Look, you cast “ _Nothing to See Here_ ” on the windows anyway, right? And it’s better than the sofa.” 

It’s satisfying in a way Simon didn’t expect - being in the air. That, and being a pest. Penny doesn’t understand what the fuck is wrong with him, but she’s vocal about it now - unlike before, when he was tired and sluggish and living on her sofa, and he could see it in her eyes, that she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just get over himself and do something with his life. Why isn’t he acting like she would have, why isn’t he taking on the world by storm (he was the storm, really. There is very little for him to do, in the quiet that follows his own passing). 

But it’s okay now, when she just thinks that he’s an annoying freak. He can live with that. 

“Oh for the love of - Simon, I asked if you wanted to go somewhere and fly and you said no. The apartment isn’t built for that.”

Simon has an answer prepared. It’s a good answer. Baz has given that to him. Recently, he seems to delight in helping Simon become a terrible roommate to Penny, as if that makes him a better boyfriend to Simon. It sort of does. “You mean, I can’t use my own wings, in my own home?” he asks her. His eyes are wide. 

“Of course you can, Simon, I’m just - “ she closes her eyes. She’s counting to ten. Then she just leaves the room, mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like: “ _Worst than Trixie_.” 

Simon is smiling, just slightly, before landing on the sofa in a hip of wings and limps, to dig out his phone and text Baz.

It’s a bad day, when Baz drags Simon out of the apartment. He hadn’t left it in a while. He gave up the cider, mostly, because flying while drinking seemed unsafe, in a way their furniture did not sign up for. Because it made him feel heavy - like if he attempts flying, he’s going to fail. And Baz has taken to provide him meals, so mostly, he lives off of that - and leftovers. One time, when there were none, he spent eight hours waiting for Baz to arrive, surviving on a jar of olives and some very stale crisps he bought a while ago when he thought that he was going to be an okay boyfriend. It’s a strange tradeoff, he knows, but he won’t let Penny touch his wings now, can’t really stomach the thought of it, and he can’t seem to tuck them under his coat either. They’re bigger - somehow. Or they won’t fold in like they used to. But covering them with a coat proved too painful, and you could see them, anyway. Like, if Simon has seen himself on the street, he’d turn to Penny and say, “That guy has wings hidden under his coat.” And then the coat ripped in half, so. He can’t leave the apartment. 

Baz says, “I’m going to Watford tomorrow instead of Penny. She was supposed to show up and help her mother reorganize but Shepard and she are going to see some… Doctor? Who even knows. If you ask me the curse has been lifted and all that,” he gestures with his hand at the air around them, as if the room has stood his mum up from Watford cleaning duty to hang out with a boy and roped Baz into going instead. 

“M’kay,” Simon tells him. He’s sitting next to the sofa, leaning his back against it. It’s a compromise. Baz stresses when Simon is laying on the sofa, lifeless and depressed and drinking Union Black, and Simon doesn’t want to shove reality back in his face, just yet. It’s not that bad of a day. Then his head snaps up. His wings snap up. His tail hits one of the cushions. “Wait,” he says - mumbles, really, but Baz’s standards are pretty fucking low, at this point. He’ll live. “Wait, are you going to Watford?” 

“That’s what I just implicitly told you, Snow.” 

“You can’t go, it’s still on fire. You’re -” Simon swallows. Is this a test? Surely it isn’t. He wishes he could protest harder. He can’t translate the air in his lungs into a proper argument, for some reason. He can’t get up and block the door with his wings. It’s like a dream - he knows that he has to fight, but he’s uncoordinated and sluggish and slow, and he’s going to die. 

“Only the Wavering Woods,” Baz tells him, and Simon not sure if it’s meant to be assuring and comes out as condescending, or if Baz is being a wanker on purpose. “I’ll be at the library - helping to sort out the surviving volumes.”

“A vampire walks into a burning room full of ancient paper.” Simon manages to get out.

“The library is not on fire anymore.” 

Simon is shaking his head. There was so much fire. All he could think about is grabbing Baz and flying away, away, away. Simon was the type to use fire to fight fire - he was no help here. He can only make things worst. He wasn’t sure why he even came, to begin with. 

“Well,” Baz had said at a time, Watford sinking in front of their very eyes, like a sunset. “That’s a magical fire.” 

And Agatha had said: “I shouldn’t have come here. I knew better. Why did I come here?” 

It was Nicodemus, apparently. Magical vampire, magical school, magical fire. He was trying to steal Ebb’s wand. He’s dead now. Both of them are dead now. Simon doesn’t want to think about it. 

“Merlin, Simon.” Penny had told him. “I wish we had your magic.” 

Simon - well, he wasn’t just going to leave with Agatha, wasn’t he? And Baz wasn’t going anywhere. “Who wants a ride?” He asked them. 

Baz’s arms were around him before he could even finish the sentence. And so it went. 

Presently, baz is still looking at Simon like Simon had just told him he’s not sure about Baz walking home alone at night. Like he’s an idiot for thinking of Baz as a victim and not as the evil creature that lurks in the night. But Baz is flammable. And there is a _fire._

“So that’s why you came here to let me know? Because it’s not at all dangerous?” 

Baz frowns at him, like Simon is the greatest idiot, and doesn’t even understand his own strengths. Like, he hurts people with sheer idiocy. “I came to tell you because if I hadn’t we’d have a fight about it afterward, probably in the library itself, because you’d follow me there, and you weren’t answering your phone.” 

“Oh,” Simon says. He wonders if he can get up. He’s pretty sure he can. There is a restlessness inside of him now. Like if he doesn’t act right now, he’s going to lose everything. There is a heaviness inside him, too - like he might as well just let that happen. “Well, Can I follow you anyway?”

Baz’s expression is unreadable. “You want to go to Watford with me to salvage magical books?”

Simon considers this. “Yes.”

Something in Baz’s expression softens, like Simon has somehow done or said the right thing somehow. Simon’s not sure how to feel about that - he just doesn’t like Baz in the vicinity of fire, and he doesn’t like Baz at Watford, without him. 

“Well go get changed,” Baz tells him. “We’re not going to be seen together while you’re wearing trackies.”

“I have a tail and I almost destroyed the World of Mage twice,” Simon tells him. 

“And if I considered any of those facts an embarrassment, I’d tell you. Right now, it’s the coffee stains on your Trust me, I’m the Doctor, t-shirt that are about to destroy my reputation.”

Simon hadn’t meant to get dressed. He hadn’t meant to get up. He sighs. “Give me a hand?”

Baz reaches for him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Watford in an open wound, and presently, it looks the part - blackened and broken and bleeding contained bursts of fire. Simon wishes that he could reach for the Sword of Mages, at least. So he could have a proof that he was worthy of fighting for it - for this world, for that building. His therapist once asked him why is it that he can only be saved by magic - like Percy Jackson and his Greek Gods, like Artemis Fowl and his fairies, like Harry Potter and his scar. Why must scrappy kids rise above the world as they know it? Why can’t he just be saved like a Normal? 

That was when he realized she didn’t get it, that she would never get it, what it was like to rise so high, to have so much - after having nothing. What it was like to have so much power after being so powerless. How beautiful everything Magick was, how beautiful Baz still is. How ugly everything used to be. Simon did not have to be saved by magick, but he had been saved by magick - that he stole, that wasn’t his. He was a promise that he was never built to live up to. He’s a deadbeat kid from Care. He’s lived up to his name. 

“Baz,” he says quietly. Because he’s back at Watford. Because he wishes that he could go back. He wishes that he could be eleven again, and for Baz to take his hand, and for Baz to not let go of his hand, he wishes that he could - “Baz.” He says again. He misses Baz while Baz is right here. He’s missing him for all those times that he was missing, in the past, and then he’s missing him in advance, for when he’ll be leaving Simon, in the future. His boyfriend is going to live forever. Simon is not a person that can fill forever. He can barely stretch himself to fit today. 

“What is it, Snow?” Baz’s voice is flat. Watford, burning. Watford, attacked by vampires. Watford is an open wound for everybody. 

Sometimes, Simon finds himself thinking: I wish I was home, even though he didn’t leave the apartment for three whole days. “Do you think Ebbs goats were killed?”

Baz looks like he does when Simon has stumped him. Which is stupid. Obviously, they’re all dead. Obviously. 

“I would assume yes,” Baz tells him. 

Simon doesn’t say anything after that.

It’s strange, being here, in a fucking castle he doesn’t deserve. He used to rage when the school was attacked. That’s his fucking home, and how dare he, how dare anyone to scorch even a single blade of grass. Simon is - was, the Humdrum, though. Simon is walking through the grounds, helpless, and stepping on what’s left of the fucking grass. He wishes - he doesn’t really. Wishes, that is. He doesn’t think about it anymore. 

He wishes he could take Baz’s hand. Can he? Take Baz’s hand? 

He doesn’t try. 

They never got to be together at Watford. He wishes that they had. He wishes that they could have returned to their room and push their bed together and that Baz could have slept in arms, that they had more time, that everything hadn’t fallen apart as quickly as it did. 

“I thought it would be the Humdrum that’ll make the castle look like that,” he says suddenly. The castle is stone and magic, it’s the house of the third little piggie, but everything is such a mess - a black, sooty mess. Watford looks like Simon nightmares used to be, and he doesn’t know - he doesn’t feel like he thought he would. Like the world has come to an end. 

Baz snorts. “I thought it would be you.” 

“Thanks, mate,” Simon frowns. “If I had it would have been your fault, probably.”

Baz shrugs. “I never claimed otherwise.” 

“I thought that I would have to die to stop - this,” he gestures. “I never thought I’ll be joining the cleaning crew.” 

Baz’s hand twitches, for a second, before he reigns it back in. 

Simon hates this. He hates everything about this. He hates walking around this shell of a school with his shell of a relationship and his shell of a self, pretending he has something to say. 

“I would have burned the entire world if you died,” Baz tells him. He’s not looking at Simon. He doesn’t stop walking. It sounds like something that people just say, like “I would die for you”, or “I would take you in if I could”, or “There is a prophecy about you, please join my magical school and fulfill it”, but no one has ever said that to Simon before. 

He’s not sure how to explain with words that this is not Simon’s story. Simon is the sacrifice through which the world keeps turning. He’s not meant to be the trigger for wars. He’s not meant to be avenged.

“You wouldn’t have burnt Watford,” Simon chides. 

Baz is walking ahead of him. Simon barely hears him when he says, “I’m not talking about Watford.” 

Simon quickens his steps then, until he reaches Baz, until he reaches out to Baz, taking Baz’s hand in his. He’s more like grasping at it, then he’s holding it. He came at Baz at a weird angle, and Baz wasn’t expecting him - Simon thinks he hears him gasping, just a bit. “Try not to think about it,” he pleads. 

Baz rearranges their hands so that they look like a couple, holding hands, and not like Simon is trying to pull Baz off the edge of a cliff. He’s nails are digging into Simon’s palm. “Bite me, Snow,” is what he says, before pulling forcefully at Simon’s hand and walking them in the direction of the library. 

The library is a horrible mess. Baz had told him that the books had some magick protecting them. But the fire had some magick fueling it, as well, and its magick was not best pleased, being contained in a single space, with nothing to burn and nowhere to go. It was the explosion that managed to damage the books, in the end. 

“I don’t really know…” Simon tells him, voice quiet, “what is it that I can do to help... “ They have nothing to research. There is a war to be fought, for sure. But they are past research for that. And Simon was never the type to learn just for the sake of it. He feels helpless, like - he could spend some time in the Football field, and that would be fine, but he has no business being here, where magickal knowledge is collected and studied and stored. 

Baz is very little help. “Me either,” he shrugs. “You were the one who wanted to join me.”

“You’re flammable,” Simon snaps. It feels like his yearbook quote, the more he says it. Simon Snow, class of 2017, “ _Baz Pitch is a vampire. No, really_.” 

“So you came to protect me?” Baz drawls. His other hand is inside his pocket, his eyebrow raised. He can go fuck himself, really. He’s not that much better at thinking things through. They had both, after all, left for America on a whim and some fake money and. 

“Yes,” Simon tells him. They are still holding hands. 

“Do that then,” Baz snaps. He lifts their joined hands, using them to point towards some crumbled shelves near the back. “Strat from collecting all those books into a stack and bring them over here.” He announces, before finding a spot for himself on some beat-up couch, near some piles of books. 

“Magick them over here,” he counters. 

“Too risky,” Baz says, rolling his eyes. “Also -”

“Waste of magick,” Simon finishes. Fucking Mages and their fucking finite amount of magick. 

Baz is smiling at him, sharp and almost mocking, from underneath his eyelashes. What are you going to do, Simon Snow? Are you going to spend the day on the sofa in a building you’re barely allowed on? Near some books you shouldn’t be reading? With people you don’t entirely deserve? 

Simon squares his shoulders, flips Baz off, then gets to work. 

He loses track of Baz after a while. More people show up, and Baz is lost in conversation about restoration, and cataloging, and whether all the books the Mage confiscated can be tracked down, and how losing any kind of a book is a tragedy, and about this is how one could tell the Mage was a tyrant, really, the purging of books. Simon couldn’t tell. He tried not to think about it, and he couldn’t tell anything. He wishes he’d stayed at the apartment, waiting for Baz to come back, steaming from the inside and not knowing why (he could never explain this to him - how everything inside of Simon relates to Baz, how much ugly there is inside of Simon these days). 

He jumps when a hand touches his shoulders. “Baz?” he snaps, turning around, even though it was clearly the wrong angle for Baz, except that no one else is touching Simon, ever. In front of him, however, is Agatha, looking like an exhausted, slightly bored barbie doll, in a Minnie skirt over tight grey stocking, and a sweater that matched her eyes. She’s so beautiful - it’s all you can see when you look at her at first, even though that’s wrong, even though you know she’s a person. She’s blinding. 

“Hi, Simon,” she says. “Came in with Baz?” 

Simon swallow. They never discussed it - the Simon-and-Baz thing. Simon sorta hoped they’ll never have to. Or else he hoped that Baz will be the one to have that conversation. He was the one who led Agatha on, after all. 

“Ah, yes.” he mumbles. He wishes he could speak like a normal person. Like, if he has to be a Normal, he could at least function, while being one. “Yes, I wanted -” he looks around. He doesn’t want to be here. He won’t leave until Baz tells him it’s time to go. “I came in to watch over him, I guess,” he shrugs. “There’s fire, and he’s…”

Agatha snorts. “If fifteen-year-old-Simon could see you now.” 

Personally, Simon thinks that fifteen-year-old-him would have understood. That he never would have hurt Baz, not really. Or at least, he can’t imagine a scenario in which he would have, not the way that Baz can imagine biting into Simon’s neck (but killing Baz would not have felt good, and sucking Simon’s blood probably would. Feel good, that is. Whatever). 

“He’d feed himself to the Merwolves, for sure,” Simon tells her. It’s a compromise. She doesn’t have to know that he’s been pining for Baz ever since he had the emotional capacity to - well, pine. 

Agatha snorts. “He’d have a fit and my clothes would smell of smoke.”

She looks at him, up and down, as if searching for something, except that Simon can’t possibly guess what it is, and he doesn’t care enough to try. 

It’s sort of insane, how nonplussed he is by her presence. He used to think she was his entire world, and he was so - charmed, by her, by everything about her, by her smile and the way she flipped her hair and the way she said his name. He was charmed by her handwriting, and her nail polish, and the sight of her in a dress. It’s mostly gone now - she’s still the second most beautiful person in the world, objectively, but he’s not as moved by it. She’s beautiful, and she’s next to him, and she exists. He has this theory, that love is like a fever, you feel it, and then you don’t, and the world seems completely different once you stop. He has this theory that he’s like a cold that Baz can’t seem to shake. That it’s better to kill it, like Agatha has, then to give in. 

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he tells her. He wonders if Penny knows. He wonders whether Baz knows. He wonders why does that matter (old habits, old panic. Baz never gave a fuck what Agatha did, and Simon is still angry sometimes, about how angry he used to be, about how cold it was, to do what Baz had done, about - Baz). (Not with him, not at him, just about him. He’s all tangled up inside, and Baz is like a piece of glass that’s moving around in his chest). 

“I didn’t expect to be here,” she answers, her voice flat. 

Simon shrugs. He cares about Agatha, for sure, except that he doesn’t care much about whether she’s upset. It doesn’t feel like his responsibility, and Simon is already letting so many other people down. (Two people, only two. But they are The People. His People. They’re worth at least five each). “I’m sorry they grounded you,” he says, though he doesn’t really mean it. “The coven, that it.”

“Yes,” she bites out. “I’m sorry too,” she mumble something else that sounds suspiciously like “tyrants.” Did she really find herself there, in America, he wonders, or was it simply so bad in here that it didn’t matter anymore? She doesn’t seem like she’s found herself. She seems rattled. She’s holding on to her wand like a lifeline, her knuckles white.”That’s why I’m here, really. I’m trying to prove…” It’s her turn to shrug. “I don’t know.”

Simon finds himself smiling. “Penny calls this community service. Though she would have been here either way, so I’m not sure why she’s so hell-bent on complaining.” 

Agatha makes a small noise that sounds like “pfft.” “I expect that you’re looking for a more sophisticated answer than “Because she’s Penelope?” 

“That’s what Baz said.” When he shrugs, nowadays, it’s a whole affair. He does it with his shoulder, and back, and wings. Right now, he’s also flicking his tail by accident, knocking down a stuck of books. 

Agatha shakes her head. She has never commented on the additions to Simon’s figure, but she avoids looking at them directly, like when someone has this really huge mole on his chin, or like when someone… is horribly disfigured. It’s impolite to stare. “I just wanted to get away you know,” she says suddenly. “That should be allowed, right?” She swallows. She’s so lovely. Like, for real. Simon’s opinion is that she should be allowed anything, except for access to Baz. Which is a historic rule, more than anything else. 

“I don’t know Aggie.” Baz hates it. He absolutely despises when Simon calls her Aggie. But she’s right here, and it’s hard not to (and there’s this part of Simon that aims to get under Baz’s skin, even at the price of both their health, both their peace of mind, their sleep). “I don’t think anyone has ever done that before.” he admits. That’s what Penny says, that nobody does what Agatha did. Simon was indignant, but Baz was on Penny’s side on this one, and it was clear that Simon just didn’t get it, why it’s like the mafia, and you’re here forever, and you can’t ever leave. 

Hell, Simon is a Normal, and he can’t ever leave. Not with his wings, not with his tail. 

Not with Baz - existing anywhere else.

Agatha shakes her head. Her gaze turns briefly to Simon’s tail, before she averts her eyes. “Lucy Salisbury left.” She mumbles. She sounds petulant, and betrayed. “She had a _child_ with her.” 

“Who?” Simon says. He wonders where is Baz. He wonders if he could cut this conversation off and go find Baz.

“Well, she was pregnant when she left, so I assume she had a child, and that our role as witches, you know? To bring about more mages, that’s what they expect from us -”

“You sound like Penny,” Simon tells her.

“And she was with the Mage, wasn’t she? And they still let her leave.” She sighs. Like this pains her. Like she wishes she could find this Neverland that Lucy Salisbury had. 

“The Mage?” he asks. He doesn’t want to have this conversation though. He doesn’t want to be here. 

“Well he wasn’t back then, I guess.” she crosses her arms. “But still, he was a big deal, right?”

Simon doesn’t answer. 

“I always figured this is why he was so obsessed with you.” Agatha goes on.

Simon’s tail crashes into the nearest wall. “How do you know this?”

“She was friends with my mum.” Agatha tells him. “Who’d let her leave, by the way. Who didn’t stalked her all the way across the ocean and -”

Simon frowns. “We rescued you from hipster vampires.” 

“That’s not the point.” Agatha hisses, although how can that not be the point? They saved her. From evil hipster vampire. That are not Baz. “The point is Penny’s mum will not let me leave the country, and Penny actually agrees with her.”

Simon’s tail jerks - one sharp motion, and knocks into Agatha’s leg. 

“Sorry!” Simon tells her. “Sorry, I’m so -”

“Can’t you control it, Simon?” She asks him. It’s an old question. He has only his old response to give. “Anyway, look - Fine-tooth comb, Lucy Salisbury.” 

A book is flying towards them, from a the bottom of one of the piles (because of course) landing in front of Agatha, before opening itself to show a picture of a girl, about eighteen, with pale skin and pale hair, her face dotted with freckles. Around her shoulders there was an arm, who belonged to… 

Simon slams the book shut. 

When you stop the stars from aligning inside your head, all you see is stars, for awhile. 

“I just mean -” Agatha goes on, “That if she was able to leave, and be left alone, then I should be too.” 

“A Mage not found is a dead Mage, Agatha,” Simon spits. He doesn’t know where that comes from. No one has ever said that to him. “Have you learned nothing? That’s why we followed you to America.” 

“She had a child,” Agatha insists. “What, did it just -”

“I have to go find Baz.” He closes his eyes. He can’t be having this conversation anymore. He can’t be thinking about this. He needs to find Baz. He needs to run away, but like, into the sky, or into a wall. He needs to crash into something, with his whole body. 

“Aw,” Agatha tells him, her voice dry. “Just like old times.”

Simon leaves her without looking back to see if she’s mad. Just like old time. 

Simon is well versed in the art of locating Baz Grimm-Pitch. And yet his current solution is somehow, amazingly, to shout Baz’s name across the library like some child, while floating near the ceiling for a better view. He’s making a spectacle of himself, like when Baz had once again spelled his shoes so that they had heels, and he insisted of wearing them anyway. 

Whatever, it works. Baz shows up, like Simon’s only remaining spell. “You’re a brute,” he tells him conversationally like it’s not an insult if he doesn’t sneer at you. “Get down from there.” 

Simon doesn’t have an argument to offer, nor can he make any proper argument from up there, and so he lands. Mostly, once safely on the floor (a little before, actually) he just reaches out to clutch at Baz’s wrist, through the sleeve of his cardigan. “You disappeared,” he mumbles. His voice his rough. 

“I was in the same room,” Baz answers, though he’s watching Simon carefully. 

“I was speaking with Agatha,” Simon tells him, because that’s a trigger, and he wants the world to explode.

“Good for you,” Baz snaps. “Why did you stop?” 

“I wanted to know where you were,” Simon explains.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” Baz snarls, but without magic (it’s a nasty spell - it reverts you. Agatha’s father had tried it on Simon, after - but it didn’t work, except that Simon had felt - he’d felt like he was there, again, draining his magic, draining the world. Penny says that it was psychological, that the spell doesn’t do that, but Simon cares very little about spells and their function these days). Then he shakes out off Simon’s grip only to grab his other hand and drag him away. 

  
  


Baz leads him out of the library and into an empty classroom, singed with and smell of smoke that isn’t Simon’s, for a change. He closes the door behinds them with a bang, before turning to stare Simon up and down. Simon is in the air, sort off, he sort off never actually came down, and Baz seems annoyed as if it’s improper to just float around while having company. 

“You looked like you used to,” Baz tells him. “Like you were about to go off.” 

“I wish you would have taken me outside,” Simon answers, because that’s the only thing he understands, in all of this. That there isn’t enough room for him here. That he’s about to ricochet off of walls. That it’s going to hurt him if he stays here. 

Baz looks up at him. “Get down here, Snow. You’re not a child.”

Simon doesn’t do anything. He’d wanted Baz, hadn’t he? He’d wanted Baz to hold him, and now he’s shaking again, and he’s not sure he’s fit to fly anymore, and why won’t he come down anyway, it’s not like he’s scared of the _floor_. “What child does this?” Simon asks, since even Baz’s sister (Simon calls her Posh-Wednesday, but the sentiment is not appreciated) isn’t creepy enough for what Simon is currently up to. 

Baz tilts his head to the side. Baz seems to constantly torn between not wanting to encourage Simon by engaging to not being able to stop, and Simon wishes - he wishes that Baz could resist him, as conceited as that sounds. He wishes that he himself didn’t take advantage. “When we were eleven I’ve watched you disintegrate a dragon without even trying. It was charming. I fancied you instantly.” He adds dryly. “Nothing has changed.”

Simon’s not sure how to reply. “I feel like an idiot,” he admits. It’s the truest thing he’s told him all day. 

“Well, that’s very appropriate to the situation, Snow. Well done.” 

He doesn’t know how to do this, isn’t sure how to ask for support when all he wants to say is “don’t fucking leave me”, isn’t sure how to explain why it never works when comfort is somehow granted to him, or why he’s being ungrateful, or why he’s somehow beyond repair. He’s still shaking. His wings are shaking with him. 

“What did you want to tell me, Snow?”

It’s not a Faker Syndrom if you were actually a fake. If you were reckless instead of brave, careless instead of strong, yielding a sword you didn’t deserve with magic that wasn’t your own and tricking people into loving you. Simon had accepted this. It was better, in a way - to be the robber, instead of being robbed. He isn’t sure what to do with himself next. 

He can’t keep reassembling himself around new information. Nothing good has ever come to him from simply knowing, and he can’t be thinking about this anymore.

There are no words to say any of that, though. He is a mass of emotions that are lost in translation. He’s an over-reaction to actions taken long ago, without his knowledge or control. 

He launches, then. At Baz, into Baz. Truth is, he’s expected Baz to move, he’s expected to crash into the floor. Baz catches him, standing his ground with judgemental derision and vampire strength, arms encircling around Simon’s shoulders, catching at his wings. Baz is hugging him, and also cursing at him in three languages, and Simon, who’s still diving towards the floor inside his own mind, is not sure what his next action is. Was he trying to teach them both a lesson? Was he trying to forget everything he’s ever heard? Was he just losing his mind?

“What did Agatha say to you, Simon?” Baz asks him quietly, his lips near Simon’s ear. Simon has thought about breaking up with Baz so many times. He’s thought about killing Baz so many times. How can they still be standing here, like this. “If she broke you again -”

Simon shakes his head. He can’t be thinking about this. He can’t be talking about this. Everything about his mind is heresy. “She never broke me,” Simon mumbles. “Wasn’t that important,” he adds. He’s pulling away then, from Baz, shaking his hands and his hair, lifting himself up in order to -

Baz catches at his hands, then, keeping Simon from flying any higher. It’s a whole-body affair, Baz locked tightly in place, locking Simon tightly in place, and Simon knew that Baz was strong enough for that, but he’s never felt it before. 

“Stay with me, love.” Baz tells him. It’s an endearment. It’s an order. He doesn’t let go. It’s like being kept from falling off a cliff - backward. 

Baz’s pulling Simon to him, then, and Simon allows it. It’s whatever. And he has nowhere to run to. 

“Why did you lose it?” He asks. His voice is soft. His voice is kind. His voice burns. 

Simon shakes his head.

Baz is stepping away from him, but he’s still holding on to Simon’s palms, so it doesn’t work very well. “Then why am I here, Snow?” he asks. 

Simon can’t tell him. 

“What the fuck do you want?”

Simon can’t tell him. 

“Tell me just one fucking thing you want.”

Simon can’t - 

“I don’t care if it’s that you want to have ice cream for breakfast or adopt a polar bear, just tell me one fucking thing -”

“I want to be the one to control my wings.” Simon tells him, “I hate that you and Penny get to do it.” 

Baz blinks - once, twice. Simon has surprised him. That’s fine. It’s as good a reason to ask as any. 

“Simon, we use magic to…”

“I know that,” Simon snaps. He takes a step backward as well. He doesn’t let go of Baz’s hands. It’s okay, he’s got long arms. “I want that anyway.” He shrugs. His wings move with him. He knows that if he tells Baz why, Baz wouldn’t listen to him, so he doesn’t elaborate. Simon is rude. He’s ungrateful. One day he will be left behind and he won’t be able to leave the house, ever, and the solution is clearly to remove the wings for good - right now. But he doesn’t fucking want to. He’s selfish. In the way that he’s wasted so much magic already, and he wants to waste even more. In the sense that he’s lost his magic but not his pride - he didn’t learn any lessons, he doesn’t _want_ any less. 

“Okay,” Baz tells him. 

“What.” Simon’s eyes focus. Baz seems - not determined, exactly. More like pleased. Smug, even. What had Simon done?

“I’ll do it.”

“How.” If Simon controls his wings, will he be more like lt to leave, or more likely to stay? Does that matter to Baz? Is that why he does this? 

“I’ll figure it out.” He says, tone impatient, like Simon has just asked him how he’s about to get across town during rush hour. “I’m very smart and talented.”

“M’kay.” Simon doesn’t argue. Baz is smart and talented, but this is an outrageous request. It’s not just a waste of magic, it’s a waste of Baz’s time, of Baz’s talent. It’s a waste of Baz. 

Baz is biting his lower lip. Simon can see it. The ‘how are you still not happy?’ thought passing through Baz’s mind. 

“Do you want something from me?” he asks, because fair is fair, and Baz is a realist if there ever was one. He tends not to ask for things that the world can’t provide him. 

Baz swallows. His hands tighten around Simon’s, then slacken. He steps back, so that he’s looking into Simon’s eyes. “I want to go to our old room and make out.” He says, without inflection, eyebrow raised. Like he’s overreaching on purpose. 

Simon blinks. He tries to think - about why Baz wants this, about their room and their lives and their beds, years of raging and years of pining, and how they’re now stuck with healing scars from wounds they inflicted on each other. He feels like his brain is going to explode. He stops. “No.” He says. 

Baz says nothing. 

“But - we could stay here.” He adds. 

Baz tilts his head to the side, hair falling into his eyes. “If we must,” he concedes, and then he’s just standing there, waiting for Simon to crash into him.

Simon closes the distance, leaning his head against Baz’s shoulder. Baz’s cold fingers are in his hair; Simon’s shivering rocking them like a small natural disaster. They stay like that for awhile.


End file.
